Written by: Nimra Khan / Treatment / April 6, 2022 / 8 minutes read

The COVID pandemic has been the cause of many difficult decisions since 2019, which have been helpful for overall public health and proved necessary until it could be better managed. However, isolation has led to many negative consequences to the way we communicate. There has been much research conducted over the years that breaks down how humans communicate – verbally and non-verbally. The isolation we’ve faced has changed our habits in the way we interact with other adults, casually and in the workplace.

There have been many studies completed across the world since the onset of the pandemic. These have focused on studying the impact on overall health and quality of life due to illness and isolation at various points since 2019. Important to note within all these studies that, despite over-arching themes, there are different concerns for each age group. For example, the impact on children is very different from a young adult, compared to seniors. For our discussion, I will be focusing on adults and seniors.

A U.S. sample of 1545 adults (18 years+) were interviewed on their level of COVID exposure, traditional media use (i.e. TV, newspapers, etc.), social media use, interpersonal communication, stress and depression. As one might expect, more exposure to COVID was related to increased levels of stress. The exposure is also related to greater stress via social media use and interpersonal communication, likely because people are speaking about COVID more within their conversations with others. An important conclusion from this study is that, although social media can bring many people together during the pandemic, they also have the potential to indirectly increase stress. It can be better to have more emotional support available during disasters. 

I have to admit that although I continued using social media, I often had to make a deliberate attempt to stop looking at news about COVID because it was becoming a mental burden to hear about it all day, every day. Like with most things in life, moderation is key. Read more about digital therapy here.

A very interesting study interviewed almost 40 000 adults aged 60 and older from 27 countries to determine their experiences of COVID consequences during 2020. This study showed that, although the digital medium has been brought in more to try to reduce the amount of loneliness someone feels, that this use of frequent digital media has a mostly negative effect on the mental health of older adults. Infrequent use had better results for mental health. This negative relationship increases with age, and is also worse for people they know very well (i.e. worse for speaking with children as compared to neighbours). 

I found it most interesting that, for individuals who had a closer relationship, this increased digital-only contact had a more negative effect. This could be something many people relate to as well. For instance, going from seeing siblings or parents in-person (people we are very close to, depending on the family), to only virtual can be jarring. 

There is no doubt that having the visual cue of seeing an individual’s mouth makes communication much easier, even though it is possible to communicate with masks on. A study published in 2021 assessed how well participants (with normal and impaired hearing) could understand sentences with clear vs opaque masks. It was found that all participants, regardless of if they had regular hearing or were hearing impaired, performed much better on this task when looking at the speaker who wore a transparent mask. Reading the results, I can expect that more safety-approved masks with transparent sides would be helpful in many situations, especially to reduce frustration at not being heard properly, or even to improve polite social interactions by being able to see a person’s smile. Read more about the effects of masks here. 

It will also be interesting to see the effects of stopping masking restrictions on communication going forward. For many people, it had become a habit and even I found myself not looking at people as often as I could not read their expression or show a smile easily. Perhaps this will improve some more of the non-verbal communication in daily situations.

The University of Alabama had a discussion with Tim Levine, a professor who conducts research on communication, in 2020. It was discussed that social isolation can lead to being more suspicious of others. This can lead to being more defensive and add to the cycle of further isolation. 

There are many parts of the aforementioned studies that align with stories from their personal lives that friends have told me, as well. It is important to consider that it will likely take time to make the transition back to our pre-pandemic communication. If you are like many professionals who will still be relying on the use of Zoom for your workplace, perhaps you can also find some advice here. As we return to in-person communication as well, this course on communication wellness can also provide a good re-fresher.

To speak with one of the speech-language pathologists at Well Said: Toronto Speech Therapy, schedule an initial consultation by clicking the link below or calling (647) 795-5277.